Jerome, A Poor Man eBook

Squire Eben Merritt, towering over him, with a long
string of trout at his side, looked at him with a
puzzled frown; then he reached down and pulled him
to his feet with a mighty and gentle jerk. “How
old are you, sir?” he demanded. “Thought
you were a man; thought you were going to learn to
fire my gun. Guess you haven’t been out
of petticoats long enough, after all!”

Jerome drew his sleeve fiercely across his eyes, and
then looked up at the Squire proudly. “Didn’t
cry before him,” said he.

Squire Eben laughed, and gave his back a hard pat.
“I guess you’ll do, after all,”
said he. “So you didn’t have much
luck with the doctor?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, don’t you fret. I’ll
see what can be done. I’ll see him to-night
myself.”

Jerome looked up in his face, like one who scarcely
dares to believe in offered comfort.

The Squire nodded kindly at him. “You leave
it all to me,” said he; “don’t you
worry.”

Jerome belonged to a family in which there had been
little demonstration of devotion and affection.
His parents never caressed their children; he and
his sister had scarcely kissed each other since their
infancy. No matter how fervid their hearts might
be, they had also a rigidity, as of paralyzed muscles,
which forbade much expression as a shame and an affectation.
Jerome had this tendency of the New England character
from inheritance and training; but now, in spite of
it, he fell down before Squire Eben Merritt, embraced
his knees, and kissed his very feet in their great
boots, and then his hand.

Squire Eben laughed, pulled the boy to his feet again,
and bade him again to cheer up and not to fret.
The same impulse of kindly protection which led him
to spare the lives and limbs of old trees was over
him now towards this weak human plant.

“Come along with me,” said Squire Eben,
and forthwith Jerome had followed him out of the woods
into the road, and down it until they reached his
sister’s, Miss Camilla Merritt’s, house,
not far from Doctor Prescott’s. There Squire
Eben was about to part with Jerome, with more words
of reassurance, when suddenly he remembered that his
sister needed such a boy to weed her flower-beds, and
had spoken to him about procuring one for her.
So he had bidden Jerome follow him; and the boy, who
would at that moment have gone over a precipice after
him, went to Miss Camilla’s tea-drinking in her
arbor.

When he went home, in an hour’s time, he was
engaged to weed Miss Camilla’s flower-garden
all summer, at two shillings per week, and it was
understood that his sister could weed as well as he
when his home-work prevented his coming.

In early youth exaltation of spirit requires but slight
causes; only a soft puff of a favoring wind will send
up one like a kite into the ether. Jerome, with
the prospect of two shillings per week, and that great,
kindly strength of the Squire’s underlying his
weakness, went home as if he had wings on his feet.